--> The Official BAREBONER's Lounge <---

Same screens, just different mumbo jumbo.

 

I don't know how you guys do it but you're the cheapest site out there, now the only question is whether or not I should get a 680m on the msi barebones or 670m sli on the sager np9370. I can't find a website that compares the two, in face I can't find a site that reviews 670sli at all, at least not with 3GB of Vram.

 

670SLI would be similar to 560 (non ti) sli in a desktop but a bit slower I guess.

Regardless guys, I think i will be going with a power pro 11-36 680 (16F3) as my next project, equipped with the following:

MSI 16F3 barebone with unlocked bios.
3940XM
Gtx680m 4gb
8gb ddr3 2133mhz hyper-x sodimm
2x256gb crucial m4 ssd
Dvd-rw + external Bluray
1920x1080 matte display
Custom modified 230w delta power brick

I should hopefully be able to get some decent scores out of it

 

Just ordered my 19fs from Power Notebooks

1 PowerPro R 12:17-680 Gaming Laptops - $1,657.00
17.3" Full HD (1920x1080) MATTE LED backlit LCD
nVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M 256bit w/4.0GB GDDR5
Intel Core i7-3610QM (2.3~3.3GHz) w/6M L3 Cache - 4 Cores - 8 Threads
FREE IC Diamond Thermal Compound applied to CPU + GPU
16GB (4x 4GB) DDR3/1600 Dual Channel Memory - SALE! $30 OFF
500GB SATA II 3GB/s 7,200 RPM Hard Drive
2nd HDD - None - 2nd HDD Bracket is Included
RAID Disabled
Combo Dual Layer SuperMulti DVDRW/CDRW Drive
Built-in Bigfoot Networks Killer Wireless-N 1202 - Ultimate Gaming Card + Bluetooth 4.0 (Dual Band)

I also ordered a 256 GB 830 form Amazon and windows 8 as well (they were 50% off) Can't wait for it arrive!

Anyone have any tips on installing an SSD? I don't want to short circuit the laptop or void my warranty

 

I'll be leaving the GE60 club and becoming a bareboner myself tomorrow.

Bareboner.

Why does that make me giggle.



Also, my new signature is in honor of this milestone.

 

gonna be a long month before I order mine..I can not wait...

 

Hey guys my MSI 1762 is on order and I was wondering what bag will fit it.

At the moment I'm looking at:
Targus City gear: Amazon.com: Amazon.com: Targus CityGear Miami Messenger Case for 17 Inch Notebooks TCG200 (Black with Grey): Electronics

 

Just arrived and I have a dell 240w slim brick on the way ah it starts to come together.

 

This Dell brick is really goood - make sure you got a Delta rather than Flextronics - I've been told they are better.

 

I think its flex that im getting but its just my travel brick, my delta 230w will do the heavy lifting at home.

 

Just got a 3920XM; which may have given me extra options in XTU:



Not that it really matters with the unlocked BIOS.

 

Did you bench it yet ?

With my 3720XM, I could only get up to 4ghz @ 4 cores (and 1 core) because there was no voltage increase option On the other hand, since the voltage was low, it was getting barely hot.

jaug1337 got it now - I'd be interested to see the temps difference between yours and his since heat is directly related to the voltage - voltage of 3720xm was only 1.18v @ full load if I recall - shown in Throttlestop (VID).

 

We could bench and see

The 3720XM is hella strong.

 

It will be interesting to see how far the 3940xm will go.

Also I wonder how much base clock I will get when running 2133mhz ram.

 

So far, I get 8.16 in Cinebench 11.5 at ~4.2GHz.




I think 5.91 was the highest I got with my 2920XM ES.

 

What bios are you using 5482741?

 

E16F3IG6.30P

It's probably not the latest.

 

Hi I am having issues with the MSI 16F3 I received earlier. I did a clean install and installed all the drivers from the cd and didn't detect any issues. I then restarted and proceed to install the nvidia driver. After installation I got excited and went straight to playing swtor and I manage to play it smoothly at max settings and detected no issues at all. temperatures are within limits (cpu and gpu are in low 70s.)

After that i then installed battle field 3 then restarted the laptop after fully installing it. Once the laptop booted back to windows I tried accessing the nvidia control manager at the system tray I got an error saying that there is no nvidia graphics card and the program needs to be closed. I then uninstalled the nvidia drivers and i tried reinstalling them and im getting an error msg saying "This graphics driver could not find compatible graphics hardware." I tried reformating the laptop then install the drivers and I am still getting the same error. Please help!

 

Is it an unlocked version? Has any one tried flashing a gt60 bios?

If yours is unlocked can you share it as they are hard to find.

 

For some reason, I can't get the chipset menu to display on this one, so use at your own risk.

http://rapidshare.com/files/3933934732/E16F3IG6.30P_UNLOCKED.zip
http://rapidshare.com/files/2633634233/ECFirmware-410.zip

I haven't tried using the GT60 BIOS yet.

 

Hey guys!

I'm ordering a 16F3 from PowerNotebooks in a day or two, but I have a couple of things that worry me. It's basically the temperatures that worries me the most because it gets very hot in summer where I live (40 - 45ºC) and I fear that might affect the laptop's temperature.

Also, I noticed that the PSU is extremely enormous. Is there any sort of replacement that I can use? I've found this: Targus Home/Office 180W AC Power Laptop Charger | APA05US which should be compatible, but I read somewhere that the + and - in the tip are flipped and thus I will need to switch them and resolder the tip. Anybody had an experience with that?

 

Im going to be soldering in the right cable (5.5mm*2.5mm) into a slim 240w dell brick.

The cooling in this notebook is as good as any so just keep it to the shade if you can.

 

Isn't 240w too much? I found a similar one but 180w instead: Amazon.com: Dell Original Slim 19.5V 9.23A 180W Replacement AC Adapter for Dell Notebook Model: Dell Precision M4600, M6300, M6400,. Wouldn't that be sufficient?

And honestly, I have absolutely no context about the whole cable replacing thing so I'll probably stick with the huge brick for a while. But I'm curious, do you use the original brick's connector or do you find a matching one elsewhere?

 

I got a matching one.

There is no such thing as too much maximum power for your brick, so long as the voltage is close (19.5V here where the original is 19V) then the power needs to be the same or greater.

In this case you need more than 180W when you start ocing the CPU + GPU.

 

Interesting.. it doesn't sound as ugly as I thought it would. You think this will work? 5 5x2 5mm DC Tip Plug Connector with Cord Cable for Toshiba Asus Laptop Adapter | eBay
^So if I solder this into a 240w adapter like this: Amazon.com: Dell 240W AC Power Adapter Charger Laptop Notebook Computers (Flextronics Flat Version): Computers & Accessories
Should this work?

 

That's what I am doing, I am just waiting on the correct cable, all work is done internally so apart from maybe a slight mis-fit on the rubber stop that keeps the cord in (corrected with electrical tape) it should look pretty professional.



Well that's my travel adaptor done.

 

Looks pretty neat! I'll see what I can do once I get the laptop itself

 

Could someone do me a favour? Any 16F3 user running their stock bios could you use the tool on this post to backup your bios before flashing another?

MSI G-Series Unlocked BIOS - Page 11

Either post it up here or send it to me (make sure you don't have a password set in the bios).

 

16F3 Bios.rar (2,70 MB) - uploaded.to

16F3 Barbone Bios 3.0R vom 21.11.12 und EC 410

 

Here's an unlocked version of 30R:
http://rapidshare.com/files/835837482/E16F3IG6.30R_UNLOCKED.zip

Use at your own risk.

 

Thanks for the files, seems only the original 16f3 bios has a chipset menu.

The system is running well with a gt60 bios and the anti throttle firmware, im just working on getting the clocks up to par.

 

Which BIOS/firmware is that?

 

Its the 30M bios with the EC available from the MSI forums to prevent CPU throttling.

Also the alienware modded adapter is working great

Fastest result so far:

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5310863

 

In this neck of the woods they sell 2 piece power cord adapters.

The long wire piece is chosen to fit the power brick cord and the small 90 degree piece is to fit the adapter hole in the notebook.

Total cost is about $2.00~$2.50 US.

 

Nice. The best I can do with the modded EC is:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3920XM Processor Extreme Edition,Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. MS-16F3 score: P8308 3DMarks

 

@ Meaker

Does the upgraded 240w power adaptor require a modified BIOS or EC to work?

if so can I just use the xonar unlocked bios (mine is the GT780DXR)?

 

It means it get used otherwise it throttles before that point.

 

Ok thanks for the info.

Does the xonar ulocked bios allow the 240w power adaptor to work or do I need a different bios and EC?

 

You need the unlocked EC or you will throttle as you hit 180W anyway, the unlocked bios lets you overclock the CPU.

 

Ah ok cheers

 

TECS
this would be the super raid adapter wouldn't it?

 

Sure looks like the real deal.

They only ship within Australia.

Price seems a bit steep but I haven't seen any other place offering it as a part without it installed in an MSI notebook.

It should work in any MSI with a 16F3/1762 motherboard or in a GX60.

 

i've been looking around for one,and this is the first time i've seen one anywhere.
i have a 1762 with a 680m vid card.it has 2 6gb ssd's in it in raid 0.
this setup benchmarks better than a single ssd,it doesn't seem it should,but does.
i didn't realize at the time that one of the bays was sata 2.
i put the mechanical hard drive in a $6 usb enclosure,and i use it both as a
portable hard drive,and for storage.
i doubt i would buy one of these,and 2 msata's for myself,but it may be
something someone else would want to do.

 

The two mSATA ports eat both the SATA III slots (or you only get a single 2.5" bay at gen3).

 

By adding a Super Raid adapter,there's an opportunity to have 4 independent internal drives each with an operating system if you add the 4th drive inside a caddy into the optical drive bay.

The 2 mSATA SSDs in the adapter can be setup as an R0 array or as 2 individual SSDs.Only a single mSATA SSD in the adapter is also a possible configuration.

In a GX60 there's the possibility of having 4 SATA III SSDs?

Being able to buy the adapter separately means you can purchase a compatible model and put the mSATA SSDs of your choosing.

With a Super Raid model you're stuck with the ones from MSI or you take a beating exchanging them.

IMO,being able to buy the adapter is a Win Win albeit price.

So this week we saw Maingear introduce a barebones 16F3 with Super Raid and now we see adapters sold separately.

Will US resellers have the adapters to sell plus Whitebooks with Super Raid option?Can a US GT60 with Super Raid be at CES?

 

Hi,

I'm looking at either a 17" barebone with i7+GTX675m or MSI GX60 with A10-4600m+7970m. They are about the same price after factoring in the OS. The question is, which one will perform better in gaming? in particular for FPS games like Crysis2, BF3, and RTS like SC2, Anno, and also WoW.

I've seen discussions regarding A10 bottleneck the 7970m for CPU intensive games. But will the combination perform better than the other way around combination - a better CPU and weaker GPU - for the above mentioned genre?

another question is: how much gain will DDR3 1600 provide over DDR3 1333 in game? what about DDR3 1866? or is the money better off put in upgrading CPU/GPU?

thanks!

 

The Kepler GTX675MX hasn't trickled down to the barebones whitebook models yet.It's a step up from the Fermi GTX675M.

The i7 3630QM is the new stock CPU in the branded models.

If DDR3-1600 is the stock memory then stick with it.

The GX60 only has 2 memory slots so 2 x 8GB is max.

If you can wait a bit and see what if anything new is introduced at CES 2013 that starts on January 7th in Las Vegas.

 

thanks

think I can wait a couple of days to see the CES new arrivals from MSI.

 

Operates the GTX675MX in a 16F3 Barbone.?

 

16gb max (2x8gb)